Toronto’s Lit Espresso Bar is no stranger to the fact that one man’s waste is often another man’s gold. Last year, it donated used coffee grinds to Urban Productions, a local design company, which used the grinds for a tile project. These days, though, the cafe throws out around one and a half green bins worth of coffee grind per week. But who knows, maybe brown will become the new green. A Taiwanese textile company has found a way to transform used coffee grinds into fabric fibers.
Singtex Technical Fabric, the company behind the coffee-based fabric, uses a patented process to transform the tiny grinds into textiles. The recycled materials keep the fabric eco-friendly, along with some other added bonuses. Jason Chen, general manager at Sintex, outlined coffee-fabric’s various boons to Reuters:
"Its most important functions are: one, it absorbs water and dries fast; two, it has deodorizing function or odour control function; three, it blocks harmful ultraviolet rays and four, it reduces harm to the environment.” The only thing that could surpass the futuristic fabric, it seems, would be a suit of Mandalorian body armour.
With coffee being ordered countless times a day and its waste being, well, wasted, maybe it’s time for this Taiwan trend to expand. In the meantime, here’s a list of some other nifty things you can accomplish with coffee grinds.
[Reuters]
